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Virginia WoolfA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The story begins by designating the temporal setting as “[w]hatever hour,” already setting an undefined time to the story. This instantly offsets any expectation of linearity and aims to replicate the narrator’s sense of time rather than impose order onto these impressions. The instantly disorienting sense of time threads throughout the story as it changes from night to day to night abruptly, and the narrator wakes up from sleep but returns to bed.
The overall tone of the short story is not one of suspense, as would be conventional in ghost stories. There is a pervasive sadness that permeates the narrative: a longing for something that has been missing in the ghosts’ existence. Virginia Woolf communicates this aura of sadness by the short sentences the ghosts use to communicate with one another: “Here we left it” (3); “the room…” (4). The short sentences the ghosts tell each other and the constant murmurs they exchange, in addition to broken sentences, add to the climate of sadness and melancholy of the short story. This ambience is further deepened by the descriptions of the house and the garden. “The house all empty, the
By Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf
Between The Acts
Between The Acts
Virginia Woolf
Flush: A Biography
Flush: A Biography
Virginia Woolf
How Should One Read a Book?
How Should One Read a Book?
Virginia Woolf
Jacob's Room
Jacob's Room
Virginia Woolf
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens
Virginia Woolf
Modern Fiction
Modern Fiction
Virginia Woolf
Moments of Being
Moments of Being
Virginia Woolf
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
Orlando
Orlando
Virginia Woolf
The Death of the Moth
The Death of the Moth
Virginia Woolf
The Duchess and the Jeweller
The Duchess and the Jeweller
Virginia Woolf
The Lady in the Looking Glass
The Lady in the Looking Glass
Virginia Woolf
The Mark on the Wall
The Mark on the Wall
Virginia Woolf
The New Dress
The New Dress
Virginia Woolf
The Voyage Out
The Voyage Out
Virginia Woolf
The Waves
The Waves
Virginia Woolf
Three Guineas
Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf